Let's do the math...

What the hell? It’s Pi day.

This is the sort of thing I consider fun. I know. I need help.

My obsessions and mental health issues aside, lets crunch the numbers and see how much carbon Matty B and his Caravan belch into the atmosphere every single day.

First off...Lets get the mileage and fuel economy information for the Chevy Surburban:

Fuel Economy

Fuel Type Regular

MPG (city) 14

MPG (highway) 18

MPG (combined) 15

Now, lets plug in our constants. The weight of a gallon of gas varies depending on temperature, but on average, a gallon of gasoline weighs 6.25 pounds.

Now for the mind-bending part…A gallon of gasoline produces nearly 20 pounds of CO₂.

“What?!?!” You may be asking about now. “How can that be? You have to be insane!”

Well, be that as it may my dear Watson, the math, and the chemistry, are both elementary.

First of all, lets talk about what happens when something is combusted. The mass does not go away, it is merely transformed into vapor, and while some chemical bonds are broken, others are created. When something burns, the atoms that are freed from their bonds form new bonds with Oxygen diatoms. This makes for a molecular byproduct (CO₂₎ with heavier molecular weight than the carbon-based fuel.

When Carbon (atomic weight 12) is released from gasoline during combustion, it quickly bonds with two Oxygens, each with an atomic weight of 16. So one molecule of CO₂ has a molecular weight of 44 amu., or roughly triple the weight of the petrol.

This gives us a number that is firmly in the ballpark of the official World Resources Institute conversion rate of 19.564 pounds of CO₂ per gallon of gas.

Now, Matty B’s caravan of six Suburbans travels 280 miles per day, minimum, and lets be generous and call them all highway miles. That means that each suburban in the caravan consumes 15.55 gallons of gasoline per day. I'm being generous here -

15.556 X 19.564 = 304.338 pounds of CO₂ per Suburban per day.

So daily, our Governor is responsible for 1826.026 pounds of CO₂ emissions.

Each week, the Governor’s Caravan of Spoiled Spouse Indulgence spews 9130.128 pounds of CO₂ into the atmosphere over our state.

These numbers piss me off, especially since I didn't marry the bitch and surrender my genitals.

How about you?